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All the time in the world, none of the money

Kim Hollis: Spy Kids: All the Time in the World opened to $11.6 million (whatever the 4-D equivalent of that is). What do we think of this result for a film with a modest $27 million budget?

Bruce Hall: Much has been made of the fact that this is a lot less box office than the last Spy Kids flick pulled in on opening weekend. More has been made of the fact that these are not very good films. But I think we all know this doesn't really matter. Like those endless horror sequels, you can bet they'll keep churning these out as long as they're profitable. I'm afraid we'll keep seeing these every few years, long after they are finally relegated to direct to DVD hell. But back to the present - there also isn't really any direct competition in this demographic over the next couple of weeks. So despite poor word-of-mouth, another solid weekend plus what will surely be decent movement on DVD should eventually make this a backhanded success.

Brett Beach: I liken this to Scream 4's underwhelming $18 million opening/$38 million final take performance earlier this year. (This opened at 66% less than the previous Spy Kids.) After eight to ten years away comes a film that reeks (in 4D, ha ha) of an attempt to relaunch/reboot, when the target audience has all grown up or moved on and the new product doesn't seem to inspire anyone on either side of the critic/viewer aisle (compare the incredibly positive RT scores for the first two Spy Kids to the slams at this). I think that what may have hurt this even more is the answer to the question: are the Spy Kids films beloved enough for parents to have ignored the bad reviews and gone to see this? I believe the answer is no. But Rodriguez continues to be a one-man show and can keep his budgets cheap, and will this surely be rented by a lot of someones on DVD in a few months. Oh, and lest there be any confusion, I really liked Scream 4. Emma Roberts rocked the last 20 minutes like a SCUD missile.

Aside: The fourth dimension was smell (as in scratch and sniff cards that went to all theaters playing the film). I saw a local theater that was not playing it in 3D (but presumably had the cards) advertise on the marquee that it was in 2D. I think they would have been perfectly in their legal rights to advertise it as 3D. Just saying.

Reagen Sulewski: The scratch and sniff promo reeked (sorry) of desperation for a franchise that's well past its sell-by date. While I've got tons of respect for Rodriguez's ability to put out a professional looking film, essentially out of his garage, it's starting to seem a bit like the joke about the dog standing on its hind legs "the wonder is not that it's done well, but that it's done at all".

At some level I feel like a bit of a heel ripping on him for these films as they're obviously a labor of love, but he is throwing these out there for public consumption. Given that he can obviously keep to a budget, he'll never lack for work, but I just wish he'd choose better projects to love.

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